Posted by Chris Schmitz

Thanks to all the participants, coaches, judges, organizers, our speaker and Startup Weekend facilitator who made this event a huge success! 47 participants formed into 8 teams on Friday night, and the final results on Sunday were pretty amazing. Please check out the final pitches on YouTube (courtesy of the Toolshare team) to see the pitches if you haven't already.

SWGB 2016

The organizing team has not figured out exactly when the next event will be, but chances are it will be happening around the same time next year. We'll make sure to send out an email as the details are finalized and we'll keep swgreenbay.com updated with the latest info.

Thanks again for helping make this possible. It was amazing to see everyone pull together and accomplish so much in just one weekend. We hope you had as much fun as we did and that we see you at the next event!

Most Startup Weekend Green Bay (SWGB) teams will need one or more developers. Some startup teams work on mobile apps, computer games or other computer programs or systems. Even hardware startups or non-digital service startups should have a website and may want a smartphone app. So developers are needed for every Startup Weekend team.

Types of developers needed for SWGB 2015, February 6 – 8, 2015:

Application programmers

Systems coders

Website developers

iOS developers

Android developers

Game developers

Web services developers

I’m going to work with area organizations such as Northeast Wisconsin Developers Users Group, Northeast Wisconsin Association of Information Technology Professionals, and the Northeast Wisconsin Linux Users Group to invite all their members to participate in SWGB. We also need to contact:

Do you have an idea for a startup that could use some refinement? Or do you want to be part of a startup, but don’t have a good startup idea?

In just three hours, Startup Ideas Bootcamp will help you come up with new ideas, improve your ideas, determine the next steps, and maybe even recruit potential co-founders. This intensive, collaborative and worthwhile workshop begins with a talk by a startup founder designed to cover the components of good and bad startup ideas. For example, is your market big enough, is there organic growth potential, is there a clear path to profitability? After the main talk, attendees can share their ideas with both experts and peers to receive constructive feedback.

Time is your most precious resource during Startup Weekend. You won’t have enough time for everything you want to do during the event. In only 54 hours you will build a new company and a new product with a new team. To get the most done in that 54 hours, you should prepare for that weekend marathon. Startup Ideas Bootcamp helps you prepare to be as effective as possible during Startup Weekend Green Bay.

I’m currently working to organize Startup Ideas Bootcamps in Appleton and Green Bay. To do these bootcamps, we need three or four things:

Check your calendar right now! Look at the weekend of February 6 – 8, 2015. If you don’t already have high priority events on that Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday, put Startup Weekend Green Bay (SWGB) on your calendar for those days.

Here’s the official explanation of what Startup Weekend is: “Startup Weekends are 54-hour events where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups.” You can find out lots more about Startup Weekends by poking around on the Startup Weekend main website, http://startupweekend.org/, or by doing a Google search for “startup weekend.”

Startup Weekends are participant-driven events. If you live in northeast Wisconsin and are highly interested in the concept of this event, please consider helping with the planning and preparation for SWGB 2015. Your help is needed to make sure people know about the event, to personally invite people to participate in SWGB, to identify and help recruit mentors, and to generally make this a fantastically fun and worthwhile event. If interested in helping, email us at greenbay@startupweekend.org.

We especially need help recruiting an interesting and effective mix of participants for the event. Creating a new startup company isn’t an activity for everyone, but there are thousands of people in the Fox Cities, the Green Bay area and other parts of northeast Wisconsin who will enjoy being part of a startup. We need to let those people know about SWGB so they can connect with like-minded people in the startup community. This year one of my goals is to maximize the variety of people participating on SWGB startup teams. Here’s a prioritized list of the demographic groups I’m targeting to connect with and recruit for SWGB 2015:

Thanks to all the participants, coaches, judges, speakers, and organizers who made this event a huge success! Approximately 45 participants formed into 9 teams on Friday night, and the Sunday Demo Day results were pretty amazing.

Here is a list of the winning teams and their prizes as determined by the judges:

The Avenue HQ decided to award every registered participant of Startup Weekend with a free Shared Workspace membership through March 31st at The Avenue HQ coworking space. This level of membership includes 9-5 access, free coffee, conference room usage, and high-speed wifi. To redeem, just email them at info@theavenuehq.com and tell them which team you were on.